How Rain Impacts Marketing

Southern California got smacked with almost a full season's worth of rain in one week. Of course, the stormy weather made me think about marketing and the impact on two different businesses.

In the home improvement industry, roofing sales are going to perk up while another Southern California landmark watched ticket sales plummet: the Santa Anita Race Track cancelled races for the past week.

Here's how I personally experienced marketing in the home improvement industry and groaned through some low dips in business.

In 2004 - 2005, Pasadena had nearly 40 inches of rain. Wow! Most of it came during intense storms from November to February. Needless to say, once dry roofs sprung leaks.

In late 2005, I joined the Home Depot as an outside salesman to sell roofs. I saw the printout of the sales numbers for people on the team: commission-only salespeople were earning from $12,000 to $20,000 per month. They were running 3 - 4 appointments per day even as dry weather moved in.

2005 was a record year of sales for the entire roofing industry.

So Home Depot in their corporate offices in Atlanta were so excited by the cash that the LA office brought in, they decided to expand the sales team dramatically in 2006.

Then the rain stopped. In 2006, I ended up number 4 in Los Angeles for total appointments in the year, but I had to work almost 7 days a week. Tough emails started circulating questioning why people didn't "want" to work hard and earn money.

The corporate office churned out marketing collateral like crazy: new, impressive banners to hang over the entrances of stores, stickers on shopping carts, handouts to customers in the stores, tear-off pads at every register.

Every piece of material cried out to the customer that Home Depot could do their roofs (and do a nice job, I will say. I respected the project managers). But the rain wasn't falling and the marketing message seemed to fall right smack on to the cement aisles.

As 2007 started, the number of salespeople fell from 30 to about 11 within a few months. I hung in until the summer. In 2006 - '07, Pasadena had less than 4 inches of rain. Plus, credit was getting tighter and roofing prices rose.

But herein lies a marketing lesson: you market for the future. If you're going to have a line of products and you want people to know about it, you need to keep churning out the message.

Marketing requires a long-term effort.

So the rain is pouring this year. I expect there are some leaky roofs and sales should pick up - even if for a few months.